The most popular physiological analytics for sports and well-being in 2018
Over the past decade, Finnish-based Firstbeat has become a leading provider of physiological analytics for sports and well-being. If you have a Garmin, Suunto, Huami, Withings or Huawei watch, chances are Firstbeat Analytics are an integral part of the package. Today more than a thousand professional sports teams and millions of consumers use its data across 100+ devices.
Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets
The outfit has developed a range of algorithms that transform heartbeat data into personalized information on exercise, stress and recovery. The list of analytics it churns out is quite long and includes: VO2max Fitness Level, ody Resources,
But which of the is the most popular? Firstbeat looked at user traffic patterns from their website in 2018 to find out.
Vo2Max fitness level
Top of the list was VO2 Max. This is a measurement of how well your body uses oxygen when you’re working out at your hardest. It reflects the aerobic physical fitness of the individual, and is an important determinant of their endurance capacity during prolonged exercise. Put simply, the higher your VO2 Max, the more fit you are.

All-day stress
Stress is an unavoidable reality of of life. It’s your body’s way of responding to any kind of demand or threat by releasing a flood of hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, which rouse the body for emergency action.

All day stress monitoring allows you to see how much of your day is spent experiencing stress, and how quick your body is to recover. It taps into your heart rate variability readings (small changes in the intervals between consecutive heart beats), to arrive at this information. A reduction in the variation of beat-to-beat changes is an indicator of higher stress, an increase points to a recovery.
Aerobic training effect
The way you train determines the results you’ll get. It’s good to do both aerobic and anaerobic workouts as each has its own health and performance benefits.

Aerobic exercise is better known as cardio or endurance training. This is physical exercise of low to moderate intensity. It burns fat, reduces stress, strengthens the heart and lungs, improves circulation and reduces your risk of diabetes to name a few. In addition to the health benefits there are numerous performance benefits, too. Training Effect predicts how your efforts will impact your VO2max fitness level.
Other features which made it to this list (in order of popularity) include Recovery Time, Training Status, Training Load and Calories Burned. You can read more about all of these on firstbeat.com.
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